Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo writes pitch-perfect descriptions of small-town America. His just-released "Everybody's Fool" revisits, after ten years, the hapless cast of "Nobody's Fool" with humor and heart. Joining him in conversation is Lori Ostlund, author of the story collection "The Bigness of the World" and the recent novel "After the Parade," about which Russo advised readers, "Be alive to the possibility of wonder."

Lori Ostlund

Lori Ostlund is the author of the novel "After the Parade," reviewed in Buzzfeed as "a heartfelt rumination on reconciling with the past... that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt like an outsider." Her collection of stories, "The Bigness of the World," won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the California Book Award for First Fiction, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award. It was also shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, was a Lambda finalist, and was named a Notable Book by The Short Story Prize. Ostlund's stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other places. In 2009, Ostlund received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award.

Richard Russo

Richard Russo knows small town America. This masterful novelist has an uncanny sense of the way life works in the gritty industrial towns of the American Northeast. From the gossip and the resentments, to the people and the cafes, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Richard Russo chronicles blue-collar America in ways constantly surprising and utterly revealing. Russo's previous works include seven novels and one collection of short stories. His 2001 novel, Empire Falls, won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His newest book, That Old Cape Magic, came out in 2009. Russo earned a bachelor's degree, a master's in fine arts, and a PhD from the University of Arizona. He has two daughters and lives with his wife in Camden, Maine.
Photo credit: Elena Selbert